Childhood and Youth

(1,005 words)

Childhood and youth are socially and culturally formed constructs. Different factors, such as region, local custom, gender, the affiliation with social groups, and concepts of child and childhood, influence the way in which children live and experience the world. Three fundamental changes in the ideas about childhood have been apparent in modern China. The first set in during the late 19th and early 20th centuries when Confucian ethics lost its normative character. A second change occurred in 1949 when the idea of childhood started to be primarily influenced by…